


Becoming A Bird

by TheLadyKing



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Def took some liberties with the timeline, Kind of a character study, M/M, Multi, Past Character Death, Sam-Centric, Samtember, lil sam is a cutey, some religious undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 03:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8085913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyKing/pseuds/TheLadyKing
Summary: “We lift each other up,” Gideon whispered softly, kissing the top of Sarah’s and then Sam’s head as he clutched them tight.“We don’t put each other down,” the two of them whispered back resolutely.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is me throwing myself into doing something for Samtember before school consumes me for the week. All mistakes are my own, shouldn't be too many, still I apologize in advance for the ones there.

“Mama! Guess what mama! Mama, you’re not listening!” Little Sam Wilson was practically bouncing in his seat as he tried to garner his mother’s, Darlene, attention. Darlene smiled softly, looking away from a babbling Sarah who’d she’d been trying, rather unsuccessfully she might add, to feed for the past fifteen minutes. She had more of the mashed sweet peas on her blue cardigan than she’d been able to get Sarah to swallow down. To her right her husband Paul was trying to convince their oldest, Gideon, to just give his mixed vegetable a try. The seven-year-old was not having it.

“I don’t wanna eat no carrots!” he pouted, turning his head in defiance as Paul calmly sat beside him. The only one who’d been eating their food, as usual, was Sam. Sam wasn’t one to complain or hassle his parents when he didn’t like something. He was unusually adventurous compared to most children Darlene had known. Now she loved all her children just the same but she appreciated how easy Sam was to take care of. Of all the children he most took after Paul who was always cool and calm and understanding so it really figured. Sarah and Gideon were all her though and after all the grief she’d put her mother through she figured she deserved the two handfuls. And so did everyone else.

“Mama!” Sam called to her again, dragging her out of her quiet contemplation. She smiled again and nodded for him to go on.

“There was an orthintomogist at school today, that’s a person who talks to birds, and I know what I want to do now! When I grow up!” Sam shouted excitedly while Gideon rolled his eyes next to him.

“It’s an _ornithologist_ , bird brain. And that means he studies birds, ya dodo,” Gideon teased. Sam blushed hard and hung his head.

“Hey now, don’t talk to your brother like that,” Paul said from beside him, his face stern.

“He was talking to the bird, I didn’t know,” Sam whispered softly, embarrassed.

“That’s cause you’re stupid,” Gideon continued before Paul tapped him lightly on the hand and shook his head disapprovingly.

“Hey now, we don’t do none of that name calling or insulting in this house. What do I always say?” Paul asked, his arms crossed. This time Gideon hung his head and sighed.

“We lift each other up in this house, we never put each other down,” he repeated softly, his own cheeks hot now.

“That’s right, now apologize to your brother. I’m very disappointed in you, I know you’re better than that Gideon,” Paul said, adjusting his glasses with a sigh. Gideon huffed before nodding his head slowly.

“Sorry Sam, I wasn’t being nice and I won’t do it again,” Gideon said before shoveling a spoonful of mixed vegetables in his mouth.

Sam nodded and picked at his own food. Darlene sighed and reached across the table to touch his hand reassuringly.

“So you want to be an ornithologist when you grow up? That’s amazing!” Darlene gushed, hoping to make him feel better. Sam looked up and shook his head shyly.

“I don’t want to study birds. It’s stupid,” he muttered. Darlene shook her head and offered him another smile.

“Your dreams are never stupid, baby. You can be anything you want,” she assured him. Sam looked her over for a moment before looking over to Paul who nodded too as he cut into his chicken.

“Anything at all. Heck if you and your brother wanted to be lawn chairs you could do it!” Paul joked which got the whole table to laughing. Even Sarah, who had been licking at her hand and not at all paying attention to what was being said, laughed along.

“Well… I don’t want to study birds; I want to be a bird! I want to grow wings when I grow up and fly and touch the clouds! I wanna be in the sky, mama!” Sam gushed, Darlene chuckled and listened to him go on and on about his future plans as a bird while she went back to feeding little Sarah.

“You know what, son? One day you’re gonna fly, I can see it now. Just don’t forget about us humans here on the ground, okay?” Paul asked, beaming at their youngest son.

“I won’t, papa. I’ll carry you guys up so y’all can see the sky too!”

 

* * *

 

 

“Wait, so you told your mom you were going to be a bird when you grew up?” Bucky asked, face tight with held in laughter. Sam rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Eat my ass Barnes,” Sam grumbled from his place on the couch, in his lap sat a photo album he’d gotten in the mail. His mother had sent it to him and in it was a collection of various baby pictures of him and his siblings. A keepsake for his new place with Steve and Bucky. Of course, the moment he’d opened it up he’d been consumed with the need to tell them the story of how he’d gotten the idea to become a PJ in the first place. It all went back to his love of birds at a young age, well not even birds so much as the idea of being one.

“I mean... if that’s what you want. No need to strong-arm me, Jack,” Bucky teased, eyebrows wiggling dastardly.

“Jack? Oh man, I’m not letting some geriatric touch up on me,” Sam grumbled, flipping the page of the in the photo album to look at the next page. In the center of the page he was dressed as a peregrine falcon. He’d worked with his father for weeks to make it up while his mother worked on Sarah’s and Gideon’s. He’d been around six or seven then and he’d sworn up and down that he had the best costume in the whole world. Better than Gideon who’d dressed up as Isaiah Bradley’s Captain America and Sarah who his mother had dressed up like a little Cleopatra.

Looking back, he was more than a bit embarrassed by his near obsession but he remembered how his parents had gushed about him and his creativity at that church party. They’d always supported him and his siblings and if not for them he’d had given up on his dream just as soon as he’d gotten it.

They fostered in all their children the idea that they could be anything they wanted. No matter the circumstances they were destined for success, that’s what his mother used to say.

And he’d never stopped believing that, even after his father’s death. If anything that had pushed him harder. Now it just wasn’t the sky he wanted to reach... it was heaven.

“Hey, bird brain. Tell me more about your bird dreams,” Bucky urged, seeing the time for his playful teasing was over. Sam smiled softly and shrugged his shoulders thinking back on it.

“Yeah Sam,” Steve said as he came into the room, a glass of water in his hand. He’d been listening in on the conversation from the kitchen while he ‘sneaked’ in some of Bucky’s favorite pop tarts. Not that Bucky hadn’t heard him munching on them the whole time.

“There’s not much else to really say, I guess...,” he trailed off before flipping to another picture. It was of him on his father’s shoulders reaching up to the sky.

“Well...”

 

* * *

 

“This is your fault!” Gideon screamed, rushing to him. Sam stood stock still as Gideon grabbed him by the labels of his black formal suit jacket, shaking him roughly in his rage. Sam looked blankly from the casket that held his father’s body to the tear tracks on Gideon’s puffy cheeks.

“Let go of your brother, Deon,” his mother whispered fiercely as she stepped towards them. People behind them stood whispering and gossiping at the display. Sam didn’t care about any of them. He didn’t care if they thought, like Gideon, that this was all his fault. Because it was. If he’d never opened his mouth his father would still be _here_. Alive and with them.

“No, mama! He… he did this. This is his fault!” Gideon growled, his hands shaking against Sam’s chest where they still lay clenching the jacket that had once been his. One that their father had given to him before he’d out grown it. As always it had been given to Sam the moment Gideon had become too big for it.

“That’s not true, Gid, and you know it. This ain’t Sam’s fault and it’s cruel to say otherwise!” Sarah shouted from Sam’s right side.

“He was the one hanging with those hoodlums. He the one who told Daddy bout their beef. That wasn’t our business! Shouldn’t have put us in it!” Gideon screamed, shaking Sam again. Sam nodded his head as Gideon raged against him. He was right.

“I did… I did it. I thought he could help, I asked him to talk to them. It’s my fault,” Sam whispered, his head hanging once Gideon stopped shaking him, voice dripping with shame.

“Daddy told me… he told me to do what I thought was right and that’s what I did and I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Gid. I’m sorry mama, Sarah. I didn’t mean to be wrong about this. I’m so sorry,” he croaked out, voice breaking partway through. He’d just wanted to help his friends. He’d wanted his friends to stop dying. He didn’t know. He didn’t _know_.

“Baby,” his mother whispered, finally ripping Gideon’s hands off him. Gideon stepped back from him and hung his own head, lower lip trembling.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he cried, wiping furiously at the tears finally leaking through. Gideon pulled him forward suddenly, pressing Sam’s face to his own trembling chest. Sarah wrapped her arms around them too, sobbing all the while. Besides them Darlene wrapped her arms around herself, gazing with blurred vision upon her three children. The children she’d raised with Paul, had with Paul. She wished he was there so bad, more than almost anything, but _God_ if she wasn’t so thankful for the time they had had together. The time to make these beautiful children and raise them to be so tight. He’d be so proud of them. Lord knew she was.

“We lift each other up,” Gideon whispered softly, kissing the top of Sarah’s and then Sam’s head as he clutched them tight.

“We don’t put each other down,” the two of them whispered back resolutely.

 

* * *

 

 

It was weeks later, after Sam’s graduation, that he finally told his family of his plans. Gideon was already back off to school, doing some summer internship or another, and Sarah was planning on spending her summer at their maternal Grandmother’s house with the rest of their cousins. She’d been having a hard time in the city lately and everyone thought it was for the best.

Still he’d sat his mother and Sarah down and told them that he’d been approached by an air force recruiter and he was going to basic training at the end of June. Sarah had been surprisingly furious with him, scared to lose a brother after having just lost her father. All while he explained himself and his position his mother sat silently across from him on their olive green couch.

“What you think you going to find out there?” She’d asked finally, after a long stretch of silence.

“In the air force?” he asked, confused, as she shook her head, black curls bouncing along her broad shoulders.

“In the sky. That’s where you’re trying to get to, right? What you think you going to find there?” she asked softly.

Sam sat back and thought for a moment, worrying his bottom lip before squaring his shoulders and looking her straight in the eyes.

“I wanna see… I wanna see if I can see him there. How close can I get to heaven?” he’d said seriously. Darlene just nodded her head and smiled tearily before slowly rising and moving until she could pull him into her arms.

 

* * *

 

 

“Wow, I didn’t… you never said anything about that when you told us about joining the air force before,” Steve said, sitting before the two of them on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. Sam shrugged and wiped a stray tear before looking up at one of his boyfriend.

“We didn’t have much time before with all the explosions we were trying to dodge at the time,” Sam said nonchalantly.

“Sam… did you… did you see him?” Bucky asked from his side. Sam shook his head and chuckled.

“I didn’t see heaven or anything like that. Kept looking though. I was always up there looking for him and that’s how I found Riley really. He was looking for something up there too and we just… we were drawn together. Got real tight real quick, looking for heaven together or whatever,” Sam explained. Thinking back to the first person outside his family he’d ever loved. His brother in everything but blood.

“You still looking? When you go up there?” Steve asked, scooting forward to lay a hand on Sam’s lap.

“Not so much now. After Riley I felt like… I don’t know, I just thought maybe I didn’t need to be looking anymore. Watching Riley go down fucked with me real bad. The sky wasn’t the same any more. Wasn’t a heaven to look for then, at least that’s how it felt. But now when I go up I feel like I’m carrying them with me. Riley and my dad. I don’t have to look for them anymore because I’m the one carrying them up there with me,” he finished with a shy shrug. It sounded silly when he said it out loud.

“You did what you said you would though,” Bucky pointed out. Sam and Steve both looked at him with interest now. Bucky blushed before taking Sam’s right hand into his and placing a gentle kiss on it before clearing his throat.

“You said… you said you’d carry your dad up and show him the sky and now every time you go up you do,” he explained. Sam smiled and kissed him gently on the cheek.

“And Riley too,” Steve added.

“Guess I did become a bird, huh?” Sam joked, sniffling at their words.

“Nah, doll face, you became an angel,” Bucky assured him, kissing his hand again with a tender smile.

**Author's Note:**

> And as always come and check out my super cool fun [side blog](http://thebadlass.tumblr.com/) dedicated to nothing but fandom junk and Sam Wilson's all around amazingness.
> 
> May expand on this later if enough people are interested in that.


End file.
